A trial date has been set for this fall for a man
arrested in Ontario and charged in the 2014 death of his four-year-old
daughter in Alberta, Canada.
Oluwatosin Oluwafemi was
arrested in December 2015 and flown back to Calgary to face a charge of
second-degree murder. He appeared in court Friday, January 6th, and a
two-week trial date was set for
Oct. 2, 2017.
The court was originally told the earliest date would be
Mar. 26, 2018. Justice Earl Wilson of Court of Queen’s Bench insisted such a delay would be unacceptable.
"There’s no way we’re going to be putting this trial off for another year," Wilson said
Friday. "This man is presumed innocent until proven otherwise."
Officers
were called to a home in Calgary on Dec. 19, 2014, and found the
preschool girl in cardiac arrest and not breathing. Olive Rebekah
Oluwafemi was taken to hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Investigators said her injuries appeared to have been inflicted inside
her home and were not the result of an accident.
"The
cause
of death was blunt force injuries," Staff Sgt. Colin Chisholm said. "We
believe there were injuries…upwards of weeks prior to the
incident."
Olive’s
death was deemed a homicide in January, 2015. Chisholm said the family of
three had been living in Calgary for approximately two years prior to
the death of Olive, but had left just weeks after her death.
Chisholm
said her father was a suspect from the beginning of the
investigation, but it took a long time to lay charges because medical
evidence in child and infant deaths takes extra long to come back.
"At
the time, investigators believed the injuries that caused her death
were inflicted within the family home, and were not the result of play,
an accident such as falling down stairs, nor medical intervention
consistent with cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)," police had said in a
release. Chisholm said police were initially told Olive fell
down stairs in the family home.
Oluwafemi is originally
from Nigeria and was working as a graduate engineer in the oil industry
in Calgary. He moved to Keswick, Ont., to be near his family. He has
been in custody since his arrest.